{"id":65,"date":"2020-03-21T18:18:36","date_gmt":"2020-03-21T18:18:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.protectthepeople.co.uk\/?p=65"},"modified":"2020-03-21T18:18:36","modified_gmt":"2020-03-21T18:18:36","slug":"lessons-from-the-onset-of-the-covid-19-crisis-in-greece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.protectthepeople.co.uk\/lessons-from-the-onset-of-the-covid-19-crisis-in-greece\/","title":{"rendered":"Lessons from the onset of the Covid-19 crisis in Greece"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is an important report from Takis Georgakopoulos, head of the intensive care unit at the hospital of Patra for many years. Takis was also head of the national organisation of public health prevention policies during the Syriza government.<\/strong> <\/em> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Starting from Achaia region\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n first case of Covid-19 infection in Greece was identified at the end of\n February and concerned a young woman from Thessaloniki who had recently\n traveled to Milan, Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n second case of Covid-19 infection involved a 66-year-old man, who had \nrecently traveled to Israel and Egypt, and firstly visited a private \ndoctor in Amaliada city, then was internated in the local Hospital and \nthen, after worsening symptoms, was transfered to the University \nHospital of Patras, as referral Hospital where was diagnosed positive \nfor Covid-19, after a test conducted by the Pasteur Institute in Athens,\n resulting in the quarantine of several Hospital staff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n worry in the case of the University Hospital of Patras was that the \ninitial directive of the National Public Health Organization (NPHO-EODY)\n was not to conduct screening for Covid-19 because the patient had \ntraveled to a country with no reports of Coronovirus infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After\n the affirmative response from the lab, it sounded an alarm both in \nPatras University Hospital and throughout the healthcare system, as it \nturned out that in the same group as the first patient, other people had\n to be checked in, as they had recently a contact with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n events unfolded rapidly over the following days as the two Patras \nHospitals, the University one and \u2018\u2019Saint Andrew\u2019s\u2019\u2019 General Hospital, \nbegan to take protective measures for the workers as well as for any \npeople who visited the hospital with possible and\/or suspected symptoms \nof respiratory infection with Covid-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n University Hospital, that had been considered a Reference Hospital for \nthe region of Western Greece, opened a special laboratory with \nconsiderable delay in mid-March.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However,\n in both Hospitals the necessary preparations were made to increase the \nICU beds, and a special Infections\u2019 department was established for cases\n where they had to stay in the Hospital without the need for mechanical \nrespiratory support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What have we learned from these events?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

First,\n the initial handling by the central government bodies was wrong, since \nthey were based on the perception that testing for Covid-19 infection \nshould only be carried out on those who had a recent trip (and possible \ncontact) in a region with established cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\n notion was based on WHO guidelines and proved to be erroneous and could\n be dangerous if the WHO did not rapidly change the definition of a \nsuspected Covid-19 case, as well as the pandemic situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second,\n it seems incomprehensible that the competent state health authorities \nwould not allow the parallel operation of a special control laboratory \nfor Covid-19 at a University Hospital that has been established as a \nCovid-19 Infection Management Reference Hospital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During\n March, 2020, several new cases of Covid-19 infection were reported \nelsewhere in Greece, as well as new deaths with the same traits as in \nother countries, which forced the Government to take drastic measures to\n restrict traffic of people, closing shops and hotels, with the original\n motto, \u201d We Stay at Home \u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\n incarceration policy raises a social fear but also has a significant \nimpact on both the human psychology and the financial situation of the \ncountry, despite the \u201d relief measures \u201d announced by the Mitsotakis \nGovernment for those affected by the restriction of trade and business, \nfor as long as the risk of dispersal and contamination with Covid-19 \nremains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\n this social environment, of course, we observe profiteering phenomena \nas well as Mitsotakis government\u2019s reluctance to impose sanitary \nhygienic items such as face masks, antiseptic solutions charged at five \ntimes the original price, and at food items that the supermarkets have \nraised their prices. Mitsotakis government also seems reluctant to \nprotect the employment status of those workers temporarily or \npermanently losing their jobs because of the socio-economic crisis \ncaused by the Covid-19 pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally,\n we cannot fail to mention the controversy with the Church over the \ninitial reluctance to stop all worship activities in order to avoid the \novercrowding of people, and especially the elderly, in the church space \nand the ideological confrontation that may exist about Covid-19 \ncontagious by the Holy Communion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\n Church Hierarchy complied with the government\u2019s orders, but the \nideological confrontation over whether or not to Covid-19 contagious \nwith the Holly Communion was not clarified, remaining unanswered the \nquestion of whether natural or theological interpretation of the \npotential danger would prevail, in this case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\n Greece of 2020, Covid-19 causes multiple social and economic \u201dside \neffects \u201d that obliged the Mitsotakis government to revise its view on \nthe importance of the Public Health System, which was pre-election \nobsolete and had a plan to hand it over to private entrepreneurs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It also tested its overall economic policy against the surplus and debt policy required by the fiscal adjustment commitment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Internally,\n however, the governments\u2019 policy, despite major announcements, leaves \nworkers unprotected from the \u201d tsunami \u201d of redundancies, promising as \nan \u2026 antidote, financial support of 400 euros (!) to each redundant \nemployee.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This\n policy of Mitsotakis Government was commented by Alexis Tsipras, \nPresident of SYRIZA, saying that \u201cMitsotakis\u2019 financial support measures\n are inadequate, as the country with the highest unemployment in Europe \nprovides the least amount of GDP.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

TAKIS GEORGAKOPOULOS<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Patras, Greece<\/p>\n\n\n\n

March, 20, 2020<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an important report from Takis Georgakopoulos, head of the intensive care unit at the hospital of Patra for many years. Takis was also head of the national organisation of public health prevention policies during the Syriza government. Starting from Achaia region\u2026 The first case of Covid-19 infection in Greece was identified at the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":67,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.protectthepeople.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.protectthepeople.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.protectthepeople.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protectthepeople.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protectthepeople.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.protectthepeople.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protectthepeople.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/67"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.protectthepeople.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protectthepeople.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.protectthepeople.co.uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}